


Change is annoyingly difficult

by Onnoff



Series: Fictober19 [21]
Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Addiction, Fictober 2019, Gen, M/M, POV Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 01:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onnoff/pseuds/Onnoff
Summary: Day 21: "Change is annoyingly difficult."Stress isn't very conducive to breaking bad habits.





	Change is annoyingly difficult

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is unbeta'd.

It’s been over an hour since Hakuba left the war room.

20 minutes since the meeting had ended. 

He couldn’t remember what made the blond leave and why. He didn’t have the time to focus on other things when there were so many lives on the line with this operation. 

The Organization was bigger than he thought, bigger than Tantei-kun thought. 

Luckily, they both had more than enough connections between thieves, magicians, detectives, secret police, not so secret police, and a bunch more other international organizations. Not to mention the fact that apparently their parents had been working together to tackle The Organization before either of them were even born. Hell, his dad was one of the casualties. 

So no, he didn’t really have the chance to even think about why Hakuba might have left or where he went. Why bother thinking about the future when you might not have one?

But with the blond missing... Kaito couldn’t help but feel the nerves and the paranoia that had been building up since the meeting increase in intensity. His mind raced to come up with various versions of the worst possible situations, and began to apply them to the missing detective.

Kaito shook his head. This wasn’t helping.

While they have their differences, he and Hakuba did share some similarities. For one, they both have a penchant for high places. And second, was the fact that they were both private people, or at the very least, they were private in their breakdowns. Kaito had other clues to help him trackdown the currently elusive detective. Things like numbers mattered to Hakuba, especially lucky numbers. Luck. Something they were all in need of right now.

Which was how Kaito found himself on the 7th floor of the building, opening a door that led out to the outside staircase, something created with the very purpose of helping people escape. 

Cigarettes. 

That was the first thing he noticed. Not just the scent that assaulted his nose as soon as he opened the door, but stubs that were lying on the floor. There wasn’t a lot of them, just a couple, but it was enough to make him doubt his deduction. _ Maybe he should have left the deductions to Hakuba _. 

But as he looked up, Kaito realized that it wasn’t that he deduced incorrectly, he just didn’t have all the information.

Hakuba leaned on his forearm on the railing of the staircase, smoke lazily drifting out of his mouth slightly open. There was faded smoke hovering and hanging all around his body. Almost as if Hakuba was just an afterimage of himself, as if _ he _ was the phantom, the ghost, and not Kaito. His left hand casually fiddled with his choice of poison, occasionally flicking some ash down to the nebulous void space below.

“I didn’t know you smoke.” He announced his presence to the blond, who didn’t seem very surprised that he was here. 

“I don’t. I quitted.” Hakuba said. He squinted at him as he joined Hakuba, leaning on the railing beside him. “Well, that’s what I wanted to say,” the ghost beside him spoke, gesturing lazily at with the cigarette, “but... well, change is annoyingly difficult.”

He stayed quiet, not knowing what to say. If anything, it felt like Hakuba needed someone to talk to rather than someone to converse with. 

Hakuba looked down at the alley below them. He looked sullen. Haggard, like an old tired warrior who had seen too much and and been carrying the weight of the world for too long. 

“It’s a bad habit. One I didn’t think I’d end up relapsing.” Hakuba explained vaguely, bringing his right hand up to massage at his temples. 

“It happens doesn’t it? Relapses,” he asked softly. It might have been something he didn’t expect from Hakuba, but at least he knew that quitting is hard. He hoped Hakuba wasn’t beating himself up over it. Not when poison seemed to be his only solace in this situation.

“I’ve been clean for over a year, Kuroba-kun.” 

A statement. 

It had an impact. 

Hakuba’s hands shook slightly and he moved his hand away from his face, clenching it, while he shakily brings his left up to his lips and breathe a bit of relaxation, a bit of himself back in. As the Hakuba sighed out the smoke, Kaito could see the difference it made. His limbs were hanging looser, the tension in his shoulders and back eased.

Hakuba turned to him and Kaito felt like he was looking at a stranger and a soulmate all at once. He knew that face, but not. He looked unreachable, with all the smoke drifting and hanging around his face. He looked like he was about to disappear. As if, were Kaito to reach for him, his hands would go right through Hakuba.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Hakuba said, looking further and further away from his grasp. “It’s not good for you.” He gestured vaguely around him. 

Kaito didn’t know if he was referring to the smoke or himself. 

He stepped into Hakuba’s space, leaning his body against him. Ah, so he wasn’t a phantom after all.

Hakuba looked at him the same way he always does. Like he was a puzzle, made just for the detective to solve. 

Kaito looked at him right in the eyes.

“I’m exactly where I should be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm using fictober19 as writing practice to push myself to write something short everyday. But that means that I don't get the time to flesh out each of the stories I'm posting for fictober. 
> 
> I plan to go back to expand (and definitely edit) on all of my fictober fics eventually, but I'll prob put priority to work on the ones that got the most interest first. So if you'd like me to expand on this fic, please leave a comment below.


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